Analogue-free system

@whitestix
Yes a very important point I entirely agree on...being able to hear albums I might have bought on Tidal first to find that a lot I would not now bother to buy. And if I am on the fence over any I just save as a favourite and listen again at my convenience.
I did stump up for the top tier $20 a month on Tidal and really glad I did.
Also allows me to listen to stuff I never even knew existed!
Certainly convenient....

In audio there is no best, only a best for you.  I may disagree with your premise, but that does not make you wrong. 

Dear @lewm : """ Raul, will you be moving over to a digital forum any time soon? """

Please let me know why should do I ?. The great opportunity that audio forums gives to all of us is to share and read several audio topics where many times we have no deep experiences with and permit to all of us LEARN about things that we just can’t even imagine are in the day by day audio world hobby. All these happens because the imnherent liberty that exist all over the free world.

I know that digital and SS electronic technologies goes against your " believes " but you are a very wise man/audiophile that already knows the superiority of both: digital and SS vs analog/LP and tubes but you just can’t accept it and I wonder why is that when I know for sure you are and have good common sense because it’s only this human been characteristic what we need to take in count that superiority.

All that " romantic " histories that we analog lovers always have are only histories way out of reality. Accept the TRUE is not easy, changes always means a hard pain for each one of us not only in audio but in our day by day life.

I said that sooner or latter my analog hardware will goes in the mean time I will listen to both alternatives. The one that never come back to me are those tubes because has not any relationship with the quality performance level ( I talking top quality levels. ) in any true audiophile/music lover home audio system.

I know that exist several audiophiles that just don’t post his preferences with today alternative but here you can count some of them and are welcomed as you are welcomed to share what you want it.

Lewm, you will never enjoy the digital alternative till you ACCEPT it. This subject it’s not on what we like and what we don’t like, the main subject is: TODAY REALITY, TODAY AUDIO DEVELOPMENT and all we can’t close our eyes/ears to that TRUE.

No one of us are stupid blind/deaf human been.

Regards and enjoy the MUSIC NOT DISTORTIONS,
R.

Lewn you hit the nail on the head.  Having a debate with people who believe SS and digital sound more like REAL music than Vinyl and Tubes, well you do the math.  Why anyone would come on a Vinyl forum and try to convert our poor souls to digital and solid state is beyond me.

I realize this is a mad hatter party which I am intruding on, but I could not help myself. Texture, tone, decay, attack, detail are words I seldom hear on these forums.  I hear black background, crisp high, detail detail detail, sound stage etc...  

I do listen to my highly modified 2A3 tube transformer output CD player when I am building my tone arms, turntables, and tube gear.  Not going to get up every 20 minutes.

Enjoy the ride
Tom

Raul, My neighbor, who is a good friend as well, has a very very expensive digital set-up.  I myself only own an Ayre C5Xe-mp and an Oppo 105 (one for each of my two different systems).  However, I spend a lot of time listening to my neighbor's megabuck digital system, as well as to his analog system.  Both he and I greatly prefer analog for "serious listening".  If he wants to demonstrate a recent change in his equipment, he prefers to use vinyl as a source. At my house, I almost never listen to CDs (or SACDs or etc), unless I want to read a book with music in the background.  Or if we are having a party.  This is because I DO hear "distortions" in digital.  Failure to elicit emotion is in my mind an indication that digital is leaving something out that was there in the original source musical content.  (I attend live musical performances typically twice a month.) Digital commits errors of omission, in other words.  But I will always listen to the "next big thing" in digital, always hoping to find something better.  Which is why I wonder why you are so secretive about your own digital gear; if you are so convinced regarding its superiority, why not make it known to us so we might benefit?  (You wrote that I won't "enjoy the digital alternative until [I] ACCEPT it"?  That's ridiculous.)

I accept your right to your own preferences; why can you not accept mine?  Why is the "other guy" in your thought process always delusional?  Finally, as I have said many many times but with no penetration into your brain: unlike yourself, I try to keep an open mind.  I do not categorically condemn or eliminate SS and digital from my life.  Both of my phono stages are hybrids, using both tubes and transistors in the signal path.  Because I have found that is the best way to achieve the gain needed for LOMCs without using a SUT.  The input and driver stages in my Beveridge amplifiers are all solid state.  I do use the Ayre, because I think that it is one of the best one-box CDPs I have ever heard, but I do recognize it is not state of the current digital art.  For that, I can go down the street and be underwhelmed.